LOS ANGELES _ A prized 23-year-old right-hander who cranks his fastball up to 98 mph was pulled from a game because of an injury Friday night, causing consternation for a Los Angeles-area team and its fans.
The Dodgers, unlike the Angels, can exhale.
While Shohei Ohtani suffered an elbow ligament injury that could sideline the Angels' two-way star for months, Dodgers rookie Walker Buehler left a 7-3 victory over the Atlanta Braves after 5 1/3 innings because of rib soreness.
The injury took some of the shine off a victory in which the Dodgers hit a season-high five homers _ two by Yasmani Grandal and one by Cody Bellinger, who has homered in four straight games _ and pushed the Dodgers (32-31) over the .500 mark for the first time since April 23, when they were 11-10.
Buehler, who was hit in the ribs by a line drive in a May 21 game against Colorado, underwent X-rays and a bone scan, the results of which were not immediately known. But the injury does not appear serious enough to sideline him for too long.
"That's the hope, that it's just a bruise _ we can manage that," manager Dave Roberts said. "He had a little trouble breathing and was in pain, so we wanted to get him out of there."
Buehler has teamed with Ross Stripling to fortify an injury-ravaged rotation that has four starters on the disabled list, going 4-1 with a 2.74 ERA in nine starts, striking out 54 and walking 11 in 51 1/3 innings.
He was dominant through four innings Friday night, mixing his electric fastball with his slider and curve to retire 12 straight batters to open the game before being nicked for a run in the fifth.
After Buehler struck out Johan Camargo with a full-count slider to open the sixth, Roberts, who noticed Buehler's fastball dip to 92 mph, and athletic trainer Nate Lucero came to the mound. A lengthy conversation ended with Buehler heading for the dugout.
"There was some residual (effects) of him taking that ball off the ribs a couple of weeks ago," Roberts said. "His velocity started to tick down in the sixth. It didn't seem like he was letting it go. For me, that was a big red flag, that he was protecting it."
The Dodgers went 5-1 on a trip on which their starting pitchers got 45 outs and their bullpen got 114 outs, 49 of them in the final two games in Pittsburgh, when Caleb Ferguson lasted 1 2/3 innings in his big-league debut on Wednesday and Dennis Santana was scratched because of injury in warmups on Thursday.
Santana, one of the organization's top pitching prospects, walked into the clubhouse Friday with his right arm in a sling and was placed on the disabled list because of a rotator-cuff strain, further depleting the team's pitching depth. The severity of the injury is not known.
Having used nine relievers in Thursday's 8-7 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Dodgers made a call to arms Friday, promoting ambidextrous reliever Pat Venditte and left-hander Adam Liberatore from triple-A Oklahoma City.
"We're hurting in the bullpen," Roberts said before the game, "but we brought in two humans and three arms, so we should be covered tonight."
Both pitched, with mixed results. Venditte replace Buehler and gave up back-to-back doubles to Dansby Swanson and Freddie Freeman for a run. He walked Kurt Suzuki and gave up a single to Ender Inciarte to open the seventh.
Liberatore came on to face Charlie Culberson, who hit a hard grounder that appeared headed to right field before second baseman Logan Forsythe snagged it, spun and fired to shortstop Chris Taylor to start a superb double play.
Liberatore struck out Peter Bourjos to end the seventh. He gave up a homer to Camargo to open the eighth but retired the next three batters. Kenley Jansen retired the side in order in the ninth to close the Dodgers' 16th win in 21 games since May 17.
Atlanta starter Brandon McCarthy, part of the trade that brought Matt Kemp to the Dodgers, was roughed up for four runs and five hits, including three homers, in 4 2/3 innings.
Kemp singled in the first, took second on Bellinger's walk and scored on Yasiel Puig's single to right. Grandal cranked a 429-foot homer to center in the second for a 2-0 lead and a 423-foot shot to center in the fourth for a 2-0 lead.
The Braves pulled to within 3-1 in the fifth when Nick Markakis broke up Buehler's perfect game with a single and scored on Suzuki's RBI double.
Joc Pederson crushed a solo homer to right, his sixth homer in six games, in the sixth, and Max Muncy followed with a homer to right, his 10th of the season, off reliever Sam Freeman for a 5-1 lead. Muncy added an RBI double in the seventh, and Bellinger hit his 12th homer in the eighth.
